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| The Incremental Voice for Justice: The Ministry of Seiichi Michael Yasutake |
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Archives Acquires Records of Leadership from within the Japanese American Episcopal Community
In keeping with its ongoing effort to gather sources that document the diversity of leadership and ministry of the Church in society, The Archives of the Episcopal Church has acquired the Personal Papers of the Reverend Seiichi Michael "Mike" Yasutake (b.1920, d.2001), spanning the period 1939-2001. Father Yasutake carried out a ministry of peace, justice, and reconciliation over fifty years as an Episcopal priest, focusing on promoting interfaith responses to violations of human rights. He worked extensively in the fields of civil rights, racial justice, the sovereignty of indigenous peoples, and the rights of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience through Episcopal, ecumenical, and non-religious organizations. The two national organizations he founded and led, the United States-Japan Committee for Racial Justice and the Interfaith Prisoners of Conscience Project, sought to redress injustices caused by individuals, businesses, cultures, and governments. While Yasutake served Japanese American Episcopalians in the Chicago area, his interest in Christian social justice was blind to differences of race or nationality and he created national networks of those seeking to protect the voiceless members of communities throughout the United States.
From Nisei to Episcopal Priest
Born in Seattle, Washington on September 25, 1920, Yasutake was the first born son of Japanese immigrants. He spent significant amounts of time in Japan during early childhood and again in 1939-1940. His impressions of the war-readiness of both Japan and the U.S. and of each nation's racist attitude toward the other in those latter years helped guide him toward his lifelong path of pacifism and anti-discrimination.
The bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 had the same dramatic effect on Yasutake's family as it did for all Japanese Americans. His father was arrested that same day, taken into custody as a possible Japanese spy, and imprisoned in FBI camps for the next three years. In April 1942 the rest of the family, except for one of Yasutake's brothers who had volunteered for the Army and was serving overseas, began their forced internment. Yasutake, a conscientious objector, was released in June 1943 along with his sister to attend the University of Cincinnati. A year later he was expelled, presumably due to his refusal to sign a loyalty oath to the United States. He was able to transfer to Boston University, obtain his Bachelor degree in History, and then enter Seabury-Western Theological Seminary where he received his Master’s degree in Divinity in 1950. Father Yasutake was the first Nisei (second generation Japanese American) Episcopal priest ordained in the Diocese of Chicago, which was his home and locus for a half century of active ministry. In 1951 he married Ruth Sonoko Tahara, who worked as a registered nurse and later as a schoolteacher.
Yasutake combined work for the Diocese of Chicago and the Midwest Province with serving Episcopal congregations in the Chicago area. Personally affected by local racial discrimination, Yasutake began to organize an open housing movement in Oak Lawn, but community resistance resulted in the parish asking the Yasutakes to leave. In 1963 he became Executive Secretary for College Work, Midwest Province and came into contact with other progressive minds willing to take the bold steps needed to fight discrimination at all levels. He joined students on a trip to McComb, Mississippi to register black voters during what is known as the Freedom Summer of 1964. After his return to Chicago, he continued to be involved in civil rights activities, especially the fair housing movement, took part in a Chicago march led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and began visiting imprisoned draft resisters.
A Lifelong Vocation of Listening to the Needs of Others
Earning his Master's degree in Student Personnel Work in Higher Education from Loyola University in 1971, Yasutake became a counselor the same year at Central YMCA Community College. There he continued to push against civil and human rights barriers and rose to Director of Counseling after receiving his doctorate in that field from Loyola in 1977. While at Central YMCA and at his later position at the Cathedral Shelter of Chicago, he applied his core principles of racial justice, freedom of expression, and political rights to a growing spectrum of causes. In 1984 he founded the United States Committee for the Human Rights of Koreans in Japan, later renamed the United States-Japan Committee for Racial Justice (USJCRJ), and broadened it to include the rights of all peoples. In 1988 he founded his second organization, the Interfaith Prisoners of Conscience Project (IPOC), to help support the human rights of political prisoners as well as to seek their release from prison.
At the age of 68, Yasutake embarked on perhaps the most active period of human rights involvement in his life. Directing both USJCRJ and IPOC, participating as a member or board officer of several Asian American, Episcopal, ecumenical, and other groups that addressed discrimination issues, and serving a Japanese American Congregation in Chicago, his energies seem to have been inexhaustible. Recognition of his dedication and success in the human rights field came often in the late 1990s: a tribute evening was held in Chicago, he was given an honorary Doctorate of Divinity from his alma mater, he received the prestigious Charles Bannerman Memorial Fellowship, and he was given two awards for his peacemaking activities.
Yasutake's activism remained unabated as he continued to plan, organize, and exchange ideas with others in the fields of human rights and prisoners of conscience. His practice of kendo, resumed during his fifties and at which he was a fifth-degree black belt, helped him keep fit and able to maintain his demanding schedule. Ruth Yasutake, Michael's wife of forty-seven years, died in 1998, and, yet, he threw himself against oppression with what vigor he could draw upon, and could take delight in the fact that he was not alone. In February 2000 he was one of those arrested in front of the Supreme Court for "impeding traffic on Capital grounds" during a demonstration to gain a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal. His leadership of USJCRJ and IPOC continued, he worked overseas military base reductions and ecological clean-up; and he took up the case of sovereignty of the indigenous people of the Southeast Pacific, the Caribbean, and Hawaii. His work on behalf of the rights of political prisoners never waned.
"Death has been swallowed up in victory": The Memory of an Activist Priest
His three children and eight grandchildren live in the Chicago area and were near when Michael Yasutake died on December 29, 2001 after suffering a stroke in Evanston, Illinois at the age of 81. In 2000 Father Yasutake had arranged for the donation of his papers to The Archives of the Episcopal Church. His sister, poet and fellow activist Mitsuye Yamada, daughter Sandra Yasutake Conners, and son David Yasutake completed the transfer of the documents after his sudden death.
The papers measure approximately 48 cubic feet and span the period from 1939 to 2001 and include correspondence, journals, photographs, writings, and organizational records. They document both personal affiliations and friendships as well as countless organizational connections that Yasutake maintained as part of a community of activism. The collection is heavily weighted towards the activities that consumed his attention: the organizational records and correspondence of the Interfaith Prisoners of Conscience Project (also known as Prisoners of Conscience Project) alone account for approximately 15 linear feet of records.
Other personal papers testify to his unfaltering personal integrity and strength of conviction that withstood discrimination and discouragement throughout his life of service. Yasutake's WRA records contain a wealth of information concerning the intensity with which the FBI investigated his father and the deep suspicion they held against anyone of Japanese descent. Evidence is also present that Yasutake was himself interrogated and pressured to swear allegiance to the United States and badgered about his conscientious objector stance. Other private papers include correspondence, applications, and literature pertaining to the Charles Bannerman Memorial Fellowship which Yasutake was awarded in 1998; and papers and photographs relating to the removal of the Yasutake family home in Seattle to the Meiji-mura Museum in Japan. Yasutake appears in nearly all of the one hundred and twelve photographic prints in the collection, most taken between 1992-2001, with a small portion dating from 1943-1957. Particularly touching are family mementos including an example of the
senryu poetry of his father, Jack Kaichiro Yasutake, written during his
internment in its original Japanese as well as in English-translation, and
clippings of his father's American citizenship ceremony held in 1953. Also
present are documents relating to Jack Yasutake's service as the Executive
Secretary of the Chicago Resettlers Committee.
One will find sermons and homilies in the Yasutake Papers, but the most original material lies in his talks and presentations. They, along with prayers, meditations, and articles mostly address the issues of peace and human rights. The archive clearly expresses the life of a man who experienced life fully and without looking back. Such is the way of history, and The Archives of the Episcopal Church is honored to be a part of preserving and presenting it for others.
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